Elemental Energy offers a great deal to attract Yu-Gi-Oh! fans of any interest level. Do you want to take your old favorites to new levels of play? This expansion can do that. Maybe you like the Yu-Gi-Oh! animated series, or perhaps Yu-Gi-Oh! GX? Elemental Energy showcases plenty of cards that you’ve seen on both shows finally making their debut in the real-life TCG. Perhaps you’re a competitive player looking for the newest powerhouse on the block?

If that describes you, then today we’ll reveal what you’re looking for. We’re going to kick off two weeks of Elemental Energy previews with a preview of one of the hottest cards ever made!

A level 5 Dark attribute Fiend monster, today’s behemoth has 2300 ATK and 1400 DEF. If it’s discarded from your hand to the graveyard by a card effect, you can special summon it to your side of the field for free. Even better, if the effect that discarded this monster belonged to your opponent, you get to destroy up to two cards of your choice on his or her field.

We don’t have this card’s name yet, but a look at the art means we could call it the Big Gold Overlord of Doom, or BGOOD for short. As in, “B GOOD, or this card will rip your field apart.” I’m just going to stick with Gold for the rest of this article.

Needless to say, Gold has “synergy” written all over it. There are a number of things you can do to trigger its effect, but first, let’s look at which of your opponent’s cards you can shut down by including it in your deck.

Don Zaloog, Spirit Reaper, and Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch—the effect of any one of these cards can backfire hideously when they strike Gold. Not only will the opponent get to summon Gold, but he or she will also get to destroy two of your cards in addition. That’s simply an unacceptable loss. In the case of Thestalos, you’re gaining no card advantage and losing two cards while the opponent special summons a huge monster. That’s a two-for-nothing exchange in the opponent’s favor, with the extra kick in the butt of having to deal with an extra monster on the field. Even if you attack and destroy a monster with Don Zaloog or Spirit Reaper, you’re still losing two-for-one, since your opponent loses the monster you destroyed in battle while you lose two cards off the field.

All three of the aforementioned cards were played in the Top 8 of Shonen Jump Championship Atlanta. You can probably expect to see a lot less of them when Gold starts popping up in tournaments.

Even Confiscation can take a hit. If you activate it, and all your opponent has in-hand are copies of this card, you must discard one. Then you lose two cards, Gold comes to the table, and you’re probably very unhappy.

Gold can provide an excellent response to some of your opponent’s moves. That’s great, but this thug of a monster gets even more impressive when you start thinking about all the proactive tricks you can use to trigger its first effect.

Mind Crush asks you to name a card in your opponent’s hand. If the card is there, the opponent discards all copies of it. If it isn’t, then you discard one of your cards at random. If you hit a card, they lose it. If you miss, you can potentially special summon Gold.

Maybe you play a deck that’s focused on The Law of the Normal, which is a surprisingly viable choice in the current format. If you can activate The Law of the Normal and then destroy one of your monsters as the result of a chained effect, both players lose their hands, the opponent likely loses all of their monsters, and today’s subject can be brought into play for some direct shots on goal.*

Okay, fine—those ideas aren’t very simple to pull off. But how about ? All it does is let you discard up to three monster cards from your hand to the graveyard. Drop a fistful of these monsters, and watch them all head to the field in unison. Is that simple enough for you?

Better yet, how about running these in a Gravekeeper deck? Today’s monster has archetype-worthy synergy with an overlooked Gravekeeper card, Royal Tribute. Royal Tribute is a spell that can only be activated when Necrovalley is on the field. It discards all monsters from the hands of both players, which is usually a neutral action that can go either way. This card was designed to give an advantage to Gravekeeper players, who could theoretically use Gravekeeper’s Chief and Rite of Spirit to recover faster than an opponent. But when it’s played in conjunction with Gold, your opponent loses all of his or her in-hand monsters while you get to special summon huge ones. For free. Against an opponent that will probably be defenseless for several turns.

That’s just one of the decks you can build with this brute.

Let’s recap what we’ve gone over so far. Drawing this card turns some of the Advanced format’s most spectacular monsters into complete mistakes. At the same time, it not only techs against popular deck choices, but will also fuel new decks on its own. Needless to say, this monster will change the way the game is played. You’re going to want to attend your local Elemental Energy Sneak Preview on November 5 or 6, just to get a shot at finding one of these cards. Whether you crack one from a pack or manage to trade for it, you’ll be happy you did.

On top of all that, though, this fellow isn’t arriving alone. Elemental Energy has a suite of support cards to back him up, and I’ll return on Saturday to show you one of them.

In the meantime, we’ve got two full weeks of exclusive preview content here at Metagame.com! Stop by every day for an in-depth look at a new card from Elemental Energy. Plan ahead, prepare your decks for the upcoming format swings, and get advanced information to help you play your best at the Elemental Energy Sneak Preview events!

—Jason Grabher-Meyer

*I’m Canadian. We all knew that one of these days I was going to come up with something hockey-related.